I am the founder and CEO of GirlQuake and the author of the Forbes book “Their Roaring Thirties: Brutally Honest Career Talk From Women Who Beat The Youth Trap.” I was at start-up, speed-up and stay #1 companies in both digital and traditional media, and the executive producer of the inaugural Forbes Women’s Summit. I serve on the boards of female-led organizations and I’m on numerous “people to watch” lists including 21 Leaders For The 21st Century and 40 Women To Watch Over 40. To learn more about me, follow me @deniserestauri.

Advice: “One does not come onto the Internet and ask for opinions, you WILL be flamed.”

Cruel: “Yea your ugly as hell, just go ahead and end your life. Your going to die alone”

This girl who has a screenname of BeautifulandProud is asking, “Am I Ugly?”

Interview with myself:

Q: Why are girls doing this?

1) Because they can. They are young and not thinking about the consequences and cruel comments.

2) Desperately seeking approval. It’s lonely being a tween-teen girl. Many have low self esteem and looking for validation in the worst place, the Internet. There’s only one way for self esteem to go with these videos, and that’s down.

3) Attention seekers aka “attention whores.”

Q: Where are their parents?

I don’t know where their parents are, but here is my #1 tip for parents: Find out what girls are doing on the web. Many parents think they have this under control because Facebook has become a family playground and some parents have a false sense of security because they are privy to their daughter’s password. But do these parents know about Tumblr and the “thinspiration” aka “thinspo” blogs where girls cheer each other on to lose extreme amounts of weight? Information is power.

Q: How does YouTube stop this before it becomes really dangerous?

Invest in safety. I’d love to hear YouTube’s answer.

Q: What am I doing to combat this trend?

Putting the spotlight on girls who are doing great things so they can get millions of YouTube views and inspire other girls.

Q: Are guys uploading “Am I Ugly?” videos?

There are a few guys in the mix. In the video below, this guy has a new haircut and wants to know if he’s “faggy or queer looking” and adds “feel free to call me a fag.” He asked and he received.

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Really…? I bet, if you knew the girl to whom you are referring to in the first video, she would probeblly tell you that she already does use face cleaner. Why would you tell a teenage girl who has enough isses trying to cope with her self esteem to “dont forget to use crearasil or somekind of cream or stuff like that” when it is commonly known that teenagers have acne issues. Also, telling the other girl to cut the hair and loose the peircings, is not very kind. Kids should be allowed to have their own sense of style (within reason of course) , it is personality building. Everyone has their own opinions of what looks good, what you or me find fashionable may not be to our neighbors. Maybe just think about how someone will take the “advice” as you called it, and modify it in a constructive way.

I worked in the Peace Corps for 2 years in Kazakhstan teaching ESL. Most of the students who were really interested in learning were girls. I taught them English, but more importantly, I did my best to teach them to love and appreciate themselves. Kazakhstan is a beautiful country, but it is still a very male-dominated culture. A few of my older students told me that nobody had ever tried to empower them before.

Our education system, and to some degree, our parents are failing to acknowledge and deal with the central core of education: the self. How many hours do parents spend with their kids each day? This becomes even more paramount and necessary during the teen years when life is changing and things become so incredibly confusing. We need to teach our kids that they are beautiful and that each of them has a gift and to appreciate who they are. This requires reinforcement from parents, siblings, teachers, and if possible, friends.

Our children are crying out for love as these videos are a perfect indication of. As a parent, when was the last time you hugged your child and told them how much you love them? As a teacher, when was the last time you told a child how wonderful they are and how well they are doing?

This is something that requires all of us to do our part. Don’t let the spark of these beautiful souls flicker out. Help them to see the beauty they have.

I don’t think this is a new trend at all. There were teens, adults and up letting others rank them on a 1-10 scale on a website called hotornot.com. And, I will fess up and note that I did it out of curiousity (as an adult) maybe at age 32, b/c I want to prove to myself that I was *still* hot, actually and, well I got a decent total cumulative rating. But, I do believe there are also many factors to take into account as I viewed said website. It did appear that most minorities as a whole got lower ratings and that may be b/c the majority of people doing the rankings were *not* minorities!

This article on Forbes just about breaks my heart in two. These children do need more positive influences in their lives and I believe that it starts at home. More often than not, I wish that YouTube had never been invented. They are so impressionable at this age and no one needs to hear negative comments about themselves – especially from someone they have never met. Young ladies – please remember this if nothing else, people that put you down are usually unhappy with themselves so they lash out and put down others to make themselves feel better. You are all beautiful. If YouTube would take some responsibility and delete these video clips – it would be a start.

I agree with you 100%! People who make nasty comments about others, in my opinion, is just a reflection of themself. Growing up, I was bullied a lot. From my personal expierience, when I got picked on, the person doing the picking had far more issues than me! What I have also found is that when people hear negitive comments about themselves from others, it dosn’t hurt nearly as much as the negitive comments comming from ” friends” or worse yet, family!

I think you are pretty. I love your eyes. You seem so sweet, but don’t place so much value on outer appearance. It’s what’s inside that counts. Most of all remember that in all your ways acknowledged Jesus Christ and he will direct your path.

If I were these kids parent they would not get the opportunity to make a video like this and put it out there for all to see. They should spend a little time thinking about how they have been given the privilege to live the life they are living and stop worrying about what other people think. I grant you that the teenage years are rough on people but they are making themselves suffer so much by worrying about these things to this extent. I always say to teens that look sad; t seems endless at the time, I know, but high school will end one day and life gets so much better. Just hang in there and don’t let it get the best of you.